| Growing Pains |
| The Immigrant Struggle in 19th Century New York |
| Introduction |
| Although late 19th century New York was a place of great opportunity for immigrants, it also was a city experiencing extreme growing pains. Many Europeans who came to New York with dreams of finding a better life found only more hardship and pain. One aspect of this pain was centered around a profound shortage of housing. New immigrants were forced to live in cramped tenement apartments that were poorly maintained, lacked heat, and festered with disease. |
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| Click on this photo of Hester Street to take a virtual tour of a tenement, and hear what tenement life was like in the 19th century. |
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| Click on this photo entitled "Fire Escapes," and then on the bullet for the Lower East Side Tenement Museum to access another virtual tour. Here, Josephine Baldizzi gives an audio commentary on her life in a tenement apartment as a girl. Also, click on the bullet for City Hall. Here, you can take a virtual tour comparing the architecture of this area in 1911 to that of 1999. |
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| Immigrant health inspection-Ellis Island, New York. |
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